Hail to the King (Greene King)
Greene King has grown from its Suffolk base to become a national company. Dominic Roskrow went to Bury St Edmunds to rediscover its roots
The two huge businesses that dominate the Suffolk town of Bury St Edmunds have much in common.
They are both massive employers in the town.
They both have large production centres there.
They both enjoy a reputation for quality that stretches far beyond the Suffolk border. And they have both achieved their lofty positions by courting controversy en route.
There, though, the similarity ends.
For the first is British Sugar, a noisy monster of a company, its ugly rusting steel carbuncle of a production site polluting the skyline as you approach the town on the A134, a rag-taggle multi-storey mix of metal and smoke. It lords over a frankly ugly modern ring road that entraps the historic market town in large retailing properties and car lots. It is an industrial 60s mess, an addendum to the town fixed to it like an angry boil.
The other is, of course, Greene King, known in these parts as the local brewer, and it announces its presence in the town quietly. You have to search for it at first and initial signs that you’re in the right place come courtesy of the distinctive green and gold emblem displayed outside the majority of the town centre pubs. The brewery itself, large as it may be, is integrated into the heart of town, its presence as old and historic as most of the period properties surrounding it. Nestling down beyond the Abbey and close to the old theatre, its large gates, the large copper kettle by the entranceway and the imposing high walls hint not at the bustling .....
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By Dominic Roskrow
Section : Brewery Focus
Page number : 18
